Understanding Anxiety For Better Management
With an increased effort in striving to destigmatize mental health over the years and the recent global pandemic, it may come as no surprise that normalizing anxiety (in attempts to remove a sense of feeling alone in the experience), providing understanding on its manifestation(s) and impact, and making tools accessible to begin reducing and managing anxiety carries a high level of importance.
What is anxiety?
A big part to understanding anxiety, is not only recognizing the symptoms of anxiety but also knowing how it differs from other similar experiences such as stress and worry. It’s not uncommon to use the terms worry, stress and anxiety interchangeably. However, they are different.
Stress is a physiological response to a perceived threat. In other words, this is how your body is responding (attempting to warn and/or protect) to the perceived threat. Some examples are: heart palpitations, sweating, restlessness, etc.
Worry is the cognitive response to a perceived threat (i.e. the thoughts you’re having in regards to the threat). These thoughts can be based in both the present and future.
Anxiety is what you experience when both the physiological and cognitive responses are present at the same time.
Differentiating between these three terms helps to better understand what you’re experiencing which, in turn, will help you better navigate and cope with your situation.
Anxiety’s manifestation(s)
Another important piece to understanding anxiety is knowing how the identified symptoms manifest (i.e. how do you experience the symptoms? How do they show up for you?). While you and the person next to you both experience physiological symptoms to anxiety, the way in which they show up (and how you experience them) may look different. For example, you both may experience sweaty palms however your hands may sweat more whereas the person next to you doesn’t have as much perspiration. Due to anxiety manifesting differently for each and every person, it’s important for not only you but your support system as well to recognize how the anxiety shows up when present.
Here are a few questions for you, or your support system, to ask in attempts to better understand your experience with anxiety:
When anxiety is present, how does my body feel?
How does anxiety influence my thoughts?
Do I feel paralyzed by the anxiety? Or am I able to function amidst the symptoms?
How do I interact with others (if at all) when anxiety is present?
You may not have answers to all of these questions right away. That’s okay! Become and stay aware of them to help you better understand how anxiety influences your thoughts, emotions and actions when it’s present.
Anxiety control
If you’ve ever experienced anxiety, you know it can feel all consuming at times; as if it’s controlling you. Knowledge is power but only if you use that knowledge. Hopefully, you have a better understanding on what anxiety is and how it shows up for you, now let’s put that knowledge into play and explore some coping skills to help you navigate, reduce and manage anxiety.
Journaling: part of why anxiety can feel so consuming is because it fires so many thoughts with no where for them to go. Getting the thoughts out on paper releases them from your brain but can also give you the power to choose what you want to do with that paper once you’re done journaling; giving you a sense of control over the thoughts.
Grounding: typically, anxiety is based in the future and more often than not, where you are in this exact moment is okay; you are safe. Grounding techniques allow you to shift your focus to the present and regulate your nervous system. Once you’ve done this, you will more than likely be able to address the anxiety triggering event more clearly and effectively.
Externalization: how you talk about anxiety (in particular, how you relate to anxiety) can influence your navigation and management of it. Externalization is an exercise that allows you to remove anxiety from who you are as a person and make it its own entity. You are not anxiety!
These tools are a great way to get you started in navigating and managing anxiety. Please note, they do not replace the benefit you receive from the guidance of a licensed professional. If you continue to feel consumed by anxiety after regularly implementing the above skills, or if you discover new battles begin to surface from the exercises, I encourage you to speak with a licensed therapist.
Anxiety is a beast! It’s a challenging one to defeat but not impossible. Regardless of how anxiety shows up and influences you, you do have the power to regain control and effectively navigate and manage anxiety. Remember, anxiety may be walking along side you but you get to determine when, where and how. If you’d like guidance on navigating and managing anxiety (and get a peak into what anxiety counseling could look like), click below for your FREE 15 minute consultation with me.
Here’s to living a better life as your best self.
Brittany Squillace, MA, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
Grief Therapist
